Forever Young
by AriSerendipity
Summary: After Damon's death, Elena, unable to cope with losing him, asks Alaric to compel her to forget every good memory of Damon. Soon, a way is found to bring Bonnie back. Bonnie is then able to also bring back Damon, but he's... not quite the same. Instead of the snarky vampire, he comes back as an infant and Elena decides to raise him. Slightly AU at the start obviously!


**"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."** - JK Rowling

The last few months had been difficult for Elena Gilbert with losing both her best friend, Bonnie as well as her boyfriend, Damon on the same night. The crippling pain of losing Damon had been too much to bear at times and the only relief she would get was from herbs she'd force Luke to give to her that would make her see her boyfriend. Seeing him, talking to him and touching him helped even if it made her lose touch with reality. It wasn't real and deep down she knew it wasn't. When Luke and Caroline both adamantly made it clear that the herbs needed to stop and she needed to move on, she'd hated the idea. What use was her eternity if she was going to wake up every day missing him desperately and dying all over again because she would have to go forever without him? Once she stopped, the pain settled in again, leading her to have her memories of Damon taken from her by Alaric to feel any sort of relief... even if it meant that she thought of Damon only as the man who killed her brother. It was the only way she would ever be able to carry on with the rest of eternity without him.

Life was easier without the memories of losing someone Elena had once loved more than life itself. She could finally focus fully on her med classes and apply herself in them as well as begin to have fun again. She was depressed over losing Bonnie and was overjoyed when Stefan and Enzo had finally found someone that was able to bring her back. Alaric ended up being lost once again in the process, which had upset Elena. Immediately upon returning, Bonnie went to work on finding a way to also bring back Damon. Elena felt indifferent about the idea of Damon Salvatore returning since she had lost the only way to get her memories back. Stefan wanted his brother back though... which Elena could definitely understand. It took some time, but Bonnie found a way to bring the older Salvatore back on the next full moon. Elena didn't learn all the specifics, but went along with Stefan and Bonnie to welcome back Damon and give Stefan support.

However, it didn't take long to realize that the spell hadn't gone... _quite_ the way it was supposed to go. It was working, or so it seemed from the swirling winds that usually seemed to accompany Bonnie's bigger spells. However after the column of bright light had disappeared, instead of the dangerous, snarky vampire that Elena knew and despised... it was an infant. Elena approached the child, pulling off her sweater and wrapping him up in it as she scooped him up, shushing softly to try and calm his screams. After rocking him a couple of times, he looked up at her and there was no mistaking those bright blue eyes. She stared at him for a moment before turning back towards Bonnie and Stefan who both wore surprised and shocked looks on their faces. "Bonnie, what the hell happened?!" she snapped irritably as she made her way back towards them.

Bonnie shook her head as she looked at the infant incredulously. "I... don't know what happened. I thought I did everything right. The… the spell should have worked."

Elena simply stared at her best friend before the sounds of the baby crying in her arms broke her focus, making her look down at the child. "Shh, shh… it's okay… shh," she soothed, gently rocking him in her arms. The sound of her voice soothed the child and gradually the cries turned into coos and quiet grumblings as… Damon sucked his thumb, watching Elena carefully.

"I can fix this…" Bonnie said, clearly just as unsure of her confidence in herself as the other two. Elena looked over at her friend and her expression softened as she shook her head, reaching over and taking her shoulder with one hand.

"No… don't worry about it tonight. You're exhausted and you need to rest," she said with a sigh. "Tomorrow's another day. Worry about it then… if it can't be changed…" She glanced down at the baby in her arms who gave her a grin and giggled, earning a smile from Elena as well before she continued. "We'll figure something else out. Maybe this time around… Damon won't turn out to be the same. Maybe this is… a second chance for him."

Elena couldn't help but wonder… what if Damon had been raised differently? What would Damon Salvatore turn out to be like without the influences of the likes of Katherine Pierce and Giuseppe Salvatore? What would he be like now in a completely different set of circumstances? Elena couldn't help but wonder and hope that life would turn out different, better this time around for him. The man she thought she knew had been horrible and had killed her brother, turned Matt's sister into a vampire, turned her own mother into a vampire… however despite all of that, Elena couldn't hold contempt for the innocent child in her arms.

Elena looked up at both Stefan and Bonnie with determination. "If this is the Damon we're getting… I'll take care of him," she promised. At the revelation, she was met with incredulous stares from both of her friends before Stefan finally spoke.

"Elena… are you sure you want to do that?" He was clearly concerned. After all, Elena thought she hated Damon with the good memories off his brother erased from her mind, never to return now.

Elena shook her head at him. "I know what you're thinking, Stefan, and I'm sure you know that this Damon isn't… quite the same person. He won't grow up to be the same person he was. I can differentiate between the two, I promise. You can trust me with this."

"What about school, Elena? Are you going to just drop out to take care of a child? This doesn't even make sense?" Bonnie interjected making Elena shrug her shoulders as she thought over the questions.

"I don't see why it should affect that… and I might not ever get another chance to raise a child. If I have to, I'll take a semester or two off down the road. I have eternity to go to school." Elena sounded more confident than she felt… after all there had only been a years difference between herself and Jeremy, so she hadn't really helped to raise him. She had very little idea on how much time and care went into caring for a child. She had her mind made up though and, with her stubbornness, nothing was going to change it. The knowledge would come with time and after all… people her age had children unexpectedly all the time. It wasn't going to be easy… that she knew for certain. After all, not every trait that Damon exhibited could be blamed on influence, she knew. Not to mention, parenthood was never easy to begin with.

Well hello! My name is Arielle, and this is my first fanfiction I've posted in... a REALLY long time now and my first one on . It's based on a roleplay I started with my friend recently and I really wanted to turn it into an actual story. If it gets a good response, then I'll keep going! Obviously I took quite a few creative liberties here because we actually started this storyline before season six started up I do believe. Obviously, Bonnie came back first and Alaric is no longer here... and he DID take Elena's memories for her and was gone before he could give them back. Malachi doesn't exist in this alternate universe either.

Anyways, thank you for reading! I'll have the next chapter out soon!


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